Capitalism Denial ?

“What we are seeing is not just a climate , energy , food or financial crisis but the systemic crisis of capitalism itself, which is bringing about the destruction of humanity and nature. If the cause is systemic, then the solution must be systemic as well.”
Bolivian President Evo Morales



As the systemic crisis grows the mental state of its subjects often borders on the totally irrational. This isn’t surprising with conditions showing only cosmetic signs of recovery in America while several European nations are threatened with bankruptcy. And with increasing wars, coal mining and oil drilling tragedies that kill more innocents and threaten greater ecological destruction there is ample reason for people to be upset . But when fearful anger results in the demonizing of individuals, the seeking of minority scapegoats or the belief in what might as well be supernatural causes for our problem , we not only miss its substance but react exactly as authority desires.

Greece is accused of living beyond its means while the continent wallows in debt just as Americans are told that government spends too much on people while massive expenditures for war are unmentioned. Some near psycho-neurotic freak out over the alleged march to socialism under Obama, as others approach hysterical frenzy over the fascism seen imminent in Arizona. People reduced to finding fault with individuals or isolated groups are not likely to demand significant systemic reforms and this is exactly how corporate state power wishes its subjects to react.

Meaningful reform is what we were promised by the rhetorical massage therapist sent to the White House with nearly fifteen million dollars invested in his campaign by Wall Street. His devoted service to capital results in scores believing he is a socialist. And capital’s profit at throwing people off their land to become illegal cheap labor across borders and inflict the loss on the communities they crowd causes reactions labeled racist fascism by graduates of the same schools; those which teach nature by focusing on trees and denying the forest. As long as we’re driven apart as allegedly unique individuals with separate needs or as political minority groups with special needs we strengthen the system driving us all to ruin.

The present crisis began when the massive Ponzi Scheme that is our economy became overloaded with payments due and no funds available to meet them. Finance capital arranged a multi trillion dollar public bailout to save private profit and the market soon rose, but so did unemployment, homelessness and greater stress for many once considered a middle class but who only maintained that status by floating on a vast sea of debt. Is it any wonder they are close to mental as well as physical collapse?

The growing war on foreigners to preserve a crumbling empire is accompanied by attacks on freedom here at home and our environmental problems accelerate in the “ destruction of humanity and nature ”. The oil spill from the latest calamity in profit pursuit could be the worst ever, but just as in the financial area there will be some form of artificial remission in the disease and everything will seem back to normal. All we need are new laws to enforce old laws which weren't being enforced and once we make it illegal to behave illegally the civil rights of capital will be protected. But those of humans wandering in the divisive identity swamp will be driven further into oil slick, coal dust , bloody war and economic deprivation .

Morales represents a rising of those previously kept silent who now send a call for the rest of us to heed or become victims of the system long oppressing them for our alleged benefit. The cost of that system has now become so deadly that humanity needs to unite in transforming it before it destroys all of us. But if we still blame isolated people or groups for what is wrong we guarantee that the problem will get worse.

Capitalists are dragged before congress and berated by representatives of capital while capitalism itself goes unquestioned. This attention to persons at the exclusion of the system which they serve may soon bring a case before the Supreme Court for corporations to legally marry and adopt , whether gay or straight . And if a Latino Transvestite occupies the White House, a White Nationalist is Speaker of the House and a Catholic Zionist heads the Senate, will we be a morally healthier nation ? Not if we haven't dealt with the substance of our production and reproduction system which is leading to breakdowns that get worse the longer we blame them on bad guys or minor flaws of profit and loss economics that can easily be corrected with some new laws. Capitalism is creating greater losses and more devastation daily and no identity group or individual change will matter if the system is not transformed , completely, before it destroys everything , completely.

Suppressed and repressed by colonialism for nearly five hundred years, amid conditions of material hardship the indigenous people of Bolivia affected radical democratic change to elect Morales. If still relatively affluent Americans continue wringing their hands about the impossibility of change or calling for lynching of demons as a form of change, we will deserve the dreadful outcome that results. We are acting like a nation of mentally disabled spoiled brats who demand a scapegoat for every problem and a selfish outcome for every desire. We are more than capable of joining in the shaping of a better more democratic world but we’d better heed the advice of foreign leaders like Morales more than what passes for our own. The system of minority capitalism is the problem and the sooner we acknowledge that fact, the sooner we can create a majority solution .